The small dog gets checked over (but not out)

The small dog has not been a happy camper over the past few days.  She was very lethargic last Wednesday (24 February) so ended up being taken to the vet.  He thought it was something to do with her abdomen and gave us some antibiotics for this. 

She seemed to be improving on Friday and Saturday (able to run OK but still not jumping) but on Sunday morning was really really slow to move.  Frances took her for a walk and she only made 200m and had to be carried home.  Our usual vet takes Sundays off and their message gave the phone number of the Emergency service.

I was off at a Vets Handicap race at the time and when I got home Frances thought the poor dog was dying.  After an awful lot of thought I concluded that we couldn't spend the day watching a dog die and despite having heard some unfavourable comments about the Emergency Service we took Tammy off there.

In fact they were excellent and x-rayed her, finding the problem to be mineralisation in a thoracic disc.  They gave her some strong pain relief  and gave us some analgesic material to be given to her.  Theer seems to be quite a bit involved in getting her back well, including having to control heer impulse to dash about - when she gets better) but the prognosis seems not too bad.

We got onto the pain relief therapy that evening and she seemed to be less bad, but nowhere near good the next morning (1 March).  When we returned from our activities she was standing waiting for us in full tail wag mode.   We took this as a positive sign!!  Later in the afternoon she went for a short walk aroud the garden and seemed in pretty good shape, as she was when Ingrid visited later in the day.  Well done vets!

She continued to improve over the next few days  possibly aided by a couple of days sitting in the car going to Adeaide.  We tried to moderate her activity (no running, no jumping) but by about 8 March this had become impossible:
  • jumping on to our bed (when a run up was available) was definitly on;
  • dancing dog happened before a morning walk; and
  • when I returned home and went to the end of the yard a leap off the highest part of the deck could no be stopped.
I think that is what she calls quality of life!  It is also exemplified in these two images from the top of the block.  I don't know what was under the log but it took a lot of effort to get her away from there!

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